Topic: political speech

Four years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case Democrats are still trying to turn back the judicial tide that is running against the campaign finance laws they cherish. In that landmark case, the court spiked the government’s efforts to regulate independent expenditures used to promote issues and to express an opinion about candidates. The court’s recent ruling in the McCutcheon case in which it eliminated the cap on aggregate donations has only deepened their frustration. As far as President Obama is concerned these decisions are all about an effort to allow the wealthy to buy American democracy. As it turns out one of the primary boosters of this point of view is the man who wrote the dissent in Citizens United, retired Justice John Paul Stevens.

Stevens is back in the public eye this month primarily to promote a new book he has written in which he proposes six new Constitutional Amendments which would essentially abrogate much of the Bill of Rights by granting the government broad powers to restrict both free speech (First Amendment) and gun rights (Second Amendment). As such, he was recruited to come to Capitol Hill yesterday to lend support for a futile Democratic effort to create an amendment to overturn the impact of Citizens United. As Seth noted earlier, this is a futile exercise as the chances of any such Amendment being passed are less than zero. But it was nonetheless interesting in that it allowed Stevens yet another platform from which he could promote his idea that “money is not speech.”

These comments were widely applauded on the left, but some of his comments as well as others made during the course of his book tour illustrate the slippery slope that Stevens and his Democratic cheerleaders wish to take the country down. Far from proving his case that what the country needs are more restrictions on the ability of citizens to make their voices heard on issues, the upshot of this debate makes it all the more clear that the real focus here is on silencing views they find inconvenient.

Four years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case Democrats are still trying to turn back the judicial tide that is running against the campaign finance laws they cherish. In that landmark case, the court spiked the government’s efforts to regulate independent expenditures used to promote issues and to express an opinion about candidates. The court’s recent ruling in the McCutcheon case in which it eliminated the cap on aggregate donations has only deepened their frustration. As far as President Obama is concerned these decisions are all about an effort to allow the wealthy to buy American democracy. As it turns out one of the primary boosters of this point of view is the man who wrote the dissent in Citizens United, retired Justice John Paul Stevens.

Stevens is back in the public eye this month primarily to promote a new book he has written in which he proposes six new Constitutional Amendments which would essentially abrogate much of the Bill of Rights by granting the government broad powers to restrict both free speech (First Amendment) and gun rights (Second Amendment). As such, he was recruited to come to Capitol Hill yesterday to lend support for a futile Democratic effort to create an amendment to overturn the impact of Citizens United. As Seth noted earlier, this is a futile exercise as the chances of any such Amendment being passed are less than zero. But it was nonetheless interesting in that it allowed Stevens yet another platform from which he could promote his idea that “money is not speech.”

These comments were widely applauded on the left, but some of his comments as well as others made during the course of his book tour illustrate the slippery slope that Stevens and his Democratic cheerleaders wish to take the country down. Far from proving his case that what the country needs are more restrictions on the ability of citizens to make their voices heard on issues, the upshot of this debate makes it all the more clear that the real focus here is on silencing views they find inconvenient.

Stevens backed up his assertion yesterday that money can’t be equated with speech by claiming that political speech is just one of the things that campaign contributions can be. The example of a non-speech expenditure that popped into his mind was the Watergate break-in that was, he pointed out, financed from contributions to President Nixon’s reelection campaign. Citing Watergate in the context of a campaign finance debate is, in one sense, appropriate, because the entire confusing welter of laws produced by the federal government in a quixotic attempt to keep money out of politics started with the fallout from that incident. But outrageous and unusual examples of criminal behavior like Watergate don’t tell us much about the way politics is practiced in the United States.

After all, liberals aren’t worried that Republicans are raising money to finance squads of comically incompetent unemployed ex-spooks to spy on their campaign headquarters, as Nixon did. Their problem with the effort to overturn these laws is that doing so opens up the public square to far more political speech. Stevens and the Democrats think all this speech is creating an unfair playing field in politics and they want to level it off by making it harder for candidates and independent groups to raise the kind of money needed to get their messages out. According to Stevens, Citizens United’s protection of independent expenditures has created vast amounts of “dark money” that cannot be directly traced back to donors, thus raising the possibility that sinister forces will manipulate and purchase the elections of favored candidates. But as we learned with the recent controversy that drove the CEO of Mozilla from his job because of a contribution to California’s Prop 8 campaign, stripping anonymity from donors is no different than abolishing the secret ballot.

The last 40 years have shown that the main effect of campaign finance laws if not their prime motive is to protect incumbents and to silence outlier movements that seek to protest against the political establishment of both major parties. The campaign finance laws also maximize the impact of the mainstream media that can slant the news or editorialize as much as they like in order to promote or trash candidates and causes.

But while money is not needed to be able to express one’s point of view at a Maine town hall meeting—the example of pure democracy repeatedly cited by Senator Angus King who chaired the committee hearing on the law—it is absolutely necessary if one is to mount a challenge to an incumbent member of the House or the Senate or to get one’s ideas about any issue before the public.

Money has and will always be the mother’s milk of politics and no law will ever be able to change that. But the point here is that it is the primary way in our mass media culture in which to reach other Americans. As such, it has become, more than it ever was before, absolutely essential to the expression of political speech. And if there was anything that the Founders of our republic intended to insulate from government interference it was political speech.

As a feature in the New York Times about Stevens’s book pointed out, the former justice isn’t just interested in restricting campaign expenditures but is willing to listen to arguments about banning or at least placing restrictions on the publication of books about politics. That sentiment alone should raise alarms to Americans about the intent of these laws no matter whether they are liberals or conservatives.

When placed in that context, there’s no question that Justice Stevens’s own book as well as the efforts of Democrats to pass amendments trashing the Bill of Rights isn’t so much about playing fair as it is in waging a war on speech.

It was perhaps predictable that the New York Times editorial page would leap to the defense of embattled Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen. The Times takes a dim view of the Marlins’ decision to suspend their now contrite field boss for telling Time Magazine how much he loved Fidel Castro. Guillen, they believe, is being penalized for exercising his constitutional right to engage in political speech. The paper thinks the team is bowing to the dictates of a “mob,” and rightly note this wouldn’t have happened anywhere else but in South Florida where Cuban-Americans–who have good reason to view any love given Castro as deeply offensive–predominate.

But the question here is neither one of law (the Times concedes the team is within its right to discipline any employee for statements that embarrass the franchise) nor of double standards (because other sports figures have been punished, sometimes far more harshly for saying things that others believe to be offensive). Rather, it is one of which mob is crying for Guillen’s blood. Because the Times and the rest of the liberal media establishment has nothing but contempt for the desire of Cuban-Americans to overthrow the Castro-led Communist dictatorship of their homeland, they are quick to characterize those calling for Guillen’s head as censors. But though the newspaper attempts to draw a distinction between Guillen and others who have been punished for expressing other hateful sentiments, the only thing different here is whose feathers have been ruffled.

It was perhaps predictable that the New York Times editorial page would leap to the defense of embattled Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen. The Times takes a dim view of the Marlins’ decision to suspend their now contrite field boss for telling Time Magazine how much he loved Fidel Castro. Guillen, they believe, is being penalized for exercising his constitutional right to engage in political speech. The paper thinks the team is bowing to the dictates of a “mob,” and rightly note this wouldn’t have happened anywhere else but in South Florida where Cuban-Americans–who have good reason to view any love given Castro as deeply offensive–predominate.

But the question here is neither one of law (the Times concedes the team is within its right to discipline any employee for statements that embarrass the franchise) nor of double standards (because other sports figures have been punished, sometimes far more harshly for saying things that others believe to be offensive). Rather, it is one of which mob is crying for Guillen’s blood. Because the Times and the rest of the liberal media establishment has nothing but contempt for the desire of Cuban-Americans to overthrow the Castro-led Communist dictatorship of their homeland, they are quick to characterize those calling for Guillen’s head as censors. But though the newspaper attempts to draw a distinction between Guillen and others who have been punished for expressing other hateful sentiments, the only thing different here is whose feathers have been ruffled.

There is, in fact, little difference between Guillen and the case (cited by the Times) of Marge Schott, the equally outrageous former owner of the Cincinnati Reds who was suspended by baseball for expressing praise of Hitler after a long career of uttering slurs against various groups. Like Guillen’s disavowal of any endorsement of Castro’s enormities, Schott claimed her statement, “Hitler was good in the beginning” shouldn’t have been considered signifying her approval of the Holocaust. When baseball suspended Schott they weren’t violating her right of free speech anymore than the Marlins violated Guillen’s rights. They were free to say what they liked, but the terms of their employment were such that their employers were under no obligation to countenance associating baseball with hateful sentiments.

As I noted earlier this week, I think ending Guillen’s career for his comments, much as baseball terminated the life’s work of Dodgers executive Al Campanis for a maladroit answer about African-Americans in 1982, would be unfair. The Times’ disapproval of the Marlins’ somewhat lenient punishment of their manager has nothing to do with principle or the free exercise of political speech. It has everything to do with the politics of what he said. The Times has no problem condemning comments about race or gender, and it is an advocate of severe restrictions on political speech in the form of campaign contributions. What it has no patience for is intolerance of those, like Guillen, who regard Communist murderers with affection. It is that lamentable but all too prevalent point of view these days that is truly regrettable.